Duane Lankard

CEO Corner

Suntell CEO Corner

I feel like the first quarter of 2022 has truly culminated in what the NCAA has coined as ‘March Madness’! Risk and volatility are now here and need to be factored into future risk mitigation strategies when managing a portfolio of commercial and agricultural credits. 

In the first quarter of this year, here are some of the top headlines:

  • Gas prices at record highs. $6 to $7 a gallon in some parts of the U.S. 
  • 30 Year mortgage rates jump from under 3% to just under 5% in 3 months
  • Inflation surges to levels not seen since the 80’s
  • Federal Reserve plans to raise interest rates 5 times this year
  • Yield curve inverts for the first time since 2006 – Recession on the horizon?
  • Farm land rents and projected crop inputs to increase over double digits in 2022
  • Supply chain disruptions coming out Covid continue to be snarled leading to continued shortages and higher inflation throughout 2022
  • Stock market enters correction territory of 10% or more
  • Russia invades Ukraine in an aggression not seen in Europe since World War II 

This is a tremendous number of factors all coming together at once to impact global, national and your local economy and greatly increasing the risk profile of your loan portfolio. Last quarter, I unveiled our new marketing around ‘Helping Bankers Sleep Soundly for over 25 Years’. With the emergence of all of the conditions I just listed in Q1 2022, having a commercial and agricultural credit underwriting and servicing system to more efficiently manage commercial and agricultural portfolio credit risk is as important now as ever. Sleep better knowing you have a system in place to originate and manage credit risk efficiently. 

I hope you plan to join Suntell for the annual Regional Training April 26 and 27 in Kansas City. At this conference you will learn more about some of the credit risk management systems in our Square 1 Credit Suite. Our trainers will cover commercial scoring, global cash flow, stress testing, credit analysis, SET reader (tax return reader), document tracking, Suntell document imaging (SDI) and other helpful best practices. 

We plan to continue to elevate our Square 1 Credit Suite and systems development to meet customer and market demands. We were pleased to hire Hugh Khan as Interim CTO, a well-respected and longtime Software Engineer in various industry verticals to help lead our development and planned technology developments going forward. 

Thank you for your business. 

Duane Lankard
Suntell CEO and Founder

Makers of the Square 1 Credit Suite

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